Autodesk Inventor Help needed!!

[storm monkey]

I know its possibly a long shot, but I'm tearing whats left of my hair out here. I'm moving jobs in a few weeks and the new company uses Autodesk Inventor. I've managed to get hold of a copy, to get a bit of a head start, but am really struggling with a key part of 2D sketching. I can draw objects etc very easily, but I cannot locate them relative to the origin planes. I'm used to pro/E, which is dead simple, but for the life of me I can't put a dimension from any feature to an origin plane. The autodim feature tells me I need extra dims, but won't place them either. Can anyone help? Can you even dimension to an origin plane? Pleas help before I go (more) bald!

Cheers,

Phil

 

[Damaged]

Not sure if this is any help as I only use Auto Cad but if I understand correctly what you are trying to do:

Click on the origin plane such as the end of a line or type 0,0 in the command line then type @0,215 to draw a line 215 units vertical or @215,0 to go horizontal.

Sorry if I've just wasted 30 seconds of your time!

 

[storm monkey]

Thanks for the hint, and that is an option, but with parametric modeling, I'm pretty sure it needs to be referenced to the ground planes by dimension or constraint.

More hair pulling i guess............anybody got a spare wig?

Phil

 

[eoghain]

you might have figured it out by now,

but before you start a 2d sketch you need to place a center point at the origin and fix it with a constraint and then work away!!

 

[storm monkey]

Yeah, I'd finally guessed it was that. Kind of defeats part of the point of datum planes in my opinion, if you can't reference them.

I did at least learn how to rotate the model without having to use the cube thingy in to top right or the steering wheel thing. Good old F4 apparently!

Cheers,

Phil